Posted by
AudiR10TDI on Thursday, January 31, 2008 10:11:52 AM
Toronto (January 31, 2008) -- This morning's Toronto Sun has a full page photo of a beautiful, mixed-race 8 month old baby girl and the caption "Who Left This Baby Girl To Freeze?" Yesterday this sweet baby was abandoned in the stairwell of a parking garage; security video shows a man leaving her face down about 2 hours before she was found in subzero temperatures -- by a woman who mistook her for a doll until she whimpered. Today the hunt is on to find out where this baby came from and who the man was who dumped her in a place where, it is clear, he was more concerned that perhaps he would not be seen, than that she would be found.
And as you might expect, the telephone lines are lighting up with hundreds of calls from people who want this little girl. You might also expect, and be right, that the majority of these calls are coming from pro-life Christians, the same people who would have been at the door of the mother of this baby (who will probably turn out to be a teenager) with aid, comfort, advice and care if only, like her baby girl, she had whimpered.
My guess, from long, sad experience, is that the man who dumped this baby will prove to be the "babydaddy", an older guy who persuaded the teenaged mother of his child that unless she got rid of the brat, he would leave her, and because YouHaveToHaveAManOrYouWill Die, he talked her into letting him dispose of the inconvenience somewhere that wouldn't be tracked back to her.
And equally sad is the thought that, if they do identify the mother, they will make every effort to slam this baby back at her and congratulate themselves on "reuniting a Family." The next time the babydaddy will make sure the baby never boomerangs back to them...with her death.
In a culture that urges girls to believe that they have to have sex every day or they'll die, that they are nothing without a man, and that babies are merely an inconvenient byproduct that is bound to ruin their lives, most babies like this one don't even live to see the light of their first day. But of those who do, I fear that the ones who are inspired by movies like "Juno" to believe that having a baby and handing it off to someone else is Cool, and then find out after they have the baby that it's not that easy and not Cool at all, will more and more often resort to simply dumping their little anchor anywhere so they can be Free...and doing it at the urging of the man who sees his child as only an impediment, a garnishment on his salary and a competitor with the babymama who wants to be fed, changed and cared for when he wants instant sex.
There has to be another answer. Can't we bring back orphanages, where babies unwanted by the person who gave birth to them could at least be left in a basket on a doorstep with no questions asked, taken in and cared for until one of the hundreds of waiting parents can take it home?
We do this for unwanted cats, dogs, rabbits, pythons and rats. Can't we make it possible for unwanted children to have an answer other than death?